What the Big Bad Boss Told the Smart Employee

—after James Mitsui

Recognition? You think
you should get recognition
for your ideas? I'm the one

who gets ideas in this
department. What you think
is my idea. I'm the boss. See

how it works? You do
what I tell you and
I hand you a paycheck. If

you were capable of coming up
with ideas, you wouldn't be
working for me. But here you are

screwing up even the simple
things I tell you to do. And
you think you can suggest

ideas for making things
better? Ideas come
from the top down

around here—people
who know things you'll
never understand. Do you have

any idea how many workers would
be happy to have your job? Hundreds,
maybe thousands. You could be

replaced at any minute
on my say-so. You're
disposable. How's that

for an idea? That's why you have
your job and I have mine. You don't have
ideas. You're a cog in a wheel

that would go on turning even
if it were missing a few small
gears like you. So put your

nose back down, leave the thinking
to me, and be thankful you get
a paycheck—that's your recognition.

At My Level

You get to see so little
of me here—just enough
to pay the mortgage, make
car payments, keep the lights
on, fuel the cells

that die in this place
five days a week
on a mezzanine
in a pyramid
made of smoke—a nine
digit number keeping

a diary of currency
accruing over time. You
know only the constraints
I abide by, that shroud me
in business casual attire

on Fridays, box me
in a map of rectangles, make
me a coloring-book caricature
with thick, black edges. I
do not disturb your fantasy

of greater-than-me-ness. It's
too entertaining to watch you,
a pawn in this Shakespearean
farce, restate your carefully
rehearsed, rhythmic lines.

I Saw What You Did

And I see that look
on your face telling
me that you know

that I know. An
inside-out look, one
the mirror should

glare at you, but you
cast at me instead
as if to blame me

for your misdeed,
your weak character,
your untrustworthiness. I

imagine you thinking
back to when you first
learned values, right

from wrong. To the
people who taught
you, whom you must
loathe, as expressed

in your efforts
at disappointing
them. I see in you

an unhappy child
in grown-up clothes
who can't get enough

of the things you don't
want to have to earn
like us little people. I

wonder if you are the
devil and I have been
mistakenly sentenced to hell.

Unappreciated

I let these hours pass knowing
I cannot bank them
or get them back again.

Waste comes to mind,
productivity, worth. Yet
I dawdle, getting grayer

with nothing to show
for these increments,
pretending I'm immortal.

The Unoccupied Snow Globe

at rest at my
desk contains

only fluid
& flickering

flecks. It can
display any

picture I
choose, or

not. Create a
flurry anytime

it's engaged. Let
its matter form

into assorted
patterns. Make

drifts mound
within its

corner-less
boundary.

Unshaken
it atrophies.

Eye Opener

Yesterday's poem wakes
me up. It tells me that it's

not finished yet. Says
to change and to while, it

to they. Forces me to forego
my shower, postpone taking

my pills. Then it sits there
arguing with me as I

delete the words it says
it doesn't want. The ink

impresses the page
overnight, becoming part

of its identity. Replacing
those words would make it

something else, correct
by others' standards, but

stilted, incomplete within
itself. Undistinguished. It

seizes my fingers, twists
them, make-a-wish

style, renders them unable
to strike the new words

into place. We stare
at each other, mirror images.

You Are Not the Boss of Me

You're the boss
of the little
actions that earn
money for this company. And it's
even hard to call you the boss
of those things. You spend so
little time on the work, so much
time flattering yourself. I know
you have to because
no one else will. I know that
when you call me names, make up
stories about my work being
inadequate, that it's not
about me—it's the only way
you know to make yourself
feel important, significant, worthy
of the oxygen you inhale
at others' expense. You
are nothing more
than an employee here, too. What
would you be without this job, this
assigned, unearned title? Who
would ever think of you as
deserving of authority
beyond these crushing walls?

Me? I run a household, a family, all
of the departments of life, receiving
accolades for accomplishments
far beyond these little actions
you oversee. So, you
see, you may have a fancy
title, but you are not
the boss of me.

Why We Don't Read Poetry

Poetry is an elixir; fluid
words expressing
that which is in our
soul but cannot spill
over the tongue or through
clenched teeth or even
into thought.

The workday conditions us
to suppress, repress,
do anything but
express that which filters
into our awareness
during our incarceration
on the job.

Supposed-to-be's
become entangled
in webs of subtle
corruption, or blatant
dis-es of everything written
in manuals and policies
and burned into conscience.

We pretend to be
our ideal selves. We pretend
to breath refreshingly. We build
ramparts around our
existence, compartmentalize our
essence. We give ourselves
over to pitiful norms.

The cure skulks within us
like a first-aid kit that ages
in the trunk of the car: yellowed
bandages that may no longer
adhere, salves that may no longer
soothe. We dare not open
Pandora's box.

A Good Boss

Makes sunshine from denim
and khaki. Molds gray

matter into rainbows
without touching

the clay. Grows solid
trees from scraggly

weeds. Is a seer
and a seamer. Conducts

without electricity. Tunes
without a fork. Harmonizes

without playing a
chord. Programs

organic systems. Perspires
the hum of peace.